A Master in the Making (Part 1)

Our master bedroom needs a lot of tlc.  Day one of move in we were ripping up the carpet.  I could not live one day with the carpet that was in there.  It was soiled from dogs and had holes and snags everywhere.  Not to mention - I am not sure what the original color of it was.  We lived on plywood for a few weeks while deciding on a new floor.  Day two was paint - our walls were almost a burnt orange with a nice space between the ceiling and walls where the previous owner left room for crown molding.  Sound familiar?  Several walls in our house were left like this.  

After several weeks (possibly months, I have lost track) our new floor arrived.  We purchased our flooring from Lumber Liquidators.  After a lot of searching we went with a laminate floor.  We decided on this because of our dogs and our budget.  I had the barn wood look in my head and this floor was dead on for the look I wanted.  Yes, there are many wood and tile floors out there that we could have got that are barn wood look-a-likes, but we have a budget people!  

We are pleased with the look and have gotten many compliments.  It is very easy to clean and with all the dog traffic - no scratches yet.

Ugly tile alert! Off of our bedroom we have a nice area that leads out to the back yard.  It houses another closet and Hubby is in the process of building me a vanity in this little nook.  It is tiled and leads into the bathroom. The tile will be changed when we start the master bathroom remodel.  I cannot wait to have a beautiful tile matched up right next to our new bedroom floor.

A new coat of paint can do wonders in a room.  With just new paint in every room in our house - it looks like a totally different place.  We used Benjamin Moore's Kendall Charcoal for our master.  Hubby and my dad installed all the crown molding to finish it off.

New closet doors. Our list of master bedroom upgrades: -paint -crown molding -flooring -new electrical plugs and covers -bedding -area rug -head board -bench/chairs at end of bed -closet doors/handles -paint french doors black -curtains on french doors -hide TV cords -vanity Still a lot of things to do ( I am sure the list will grow), but A TON has been completed. I am starting to love walking by our french doors in the dining room that lead to the master.  I do not cringe looking at plywood floors and burnt orange walls anymore. I am about 90% sure that I am not going to frost the doors, just hang curtains so that I can look in when it is not a mess! I know these pictures leave a lot to be desired, but come back for Part 2 of the master bedroom reno soon!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

A Dining Room for Two (for now)

Hubby and I were super excited when we bought this home with a space specifically designated as a dining room.  We have been living in one bedroom apartments where we could barely fit our folding table with four chairs.  And by four chairs I mean - two chairs out with two more in the closet that only got pulled out when company was over.  Now we can easily seat 6 chairs around our table with room for more! Oh the little things in life!

But first we needed a dining room table!  I had in mind exactly what I wanted - wooden farm table. Have you ever searched for a large wooden farm table?? EXPENSIVE!!!  Hubby always says that my eyes go to the most expensive thing in the store..me? Never. Deny, Deny, Deny.   We had to come up with plan B.

There he is - Hubby - new birthday present to help with the table!

Okay Plan B - make our own.  We LOVE to DIY so this was no problem, especially because we had 2 large pieces of our actual wall lying around in the garage.  Our house has cedar plank walls under the sheetrock. Nice and sturdy (and you can ALWAYS find a stud when hanging something!) and beautiful!  At some point before we owned the house, parts of the wall had been taken out and were preserved in our garage.  We (...Hubby) cleaned them up and nailed them together - added the legs, stained it, and TADAAAA! I am sure he will argue that is was NOT that easy - but hey it was THAT easy to watch!

My parents gifted us with our beautiful green chairs from World Market (similar here).  I have a temporary plan for our folding chairs that we have placed around the table right now. I will post when those are complete!  I am searching for the perfect chairs to complete that table - I cannot decide.  I go back and forth between having Hubby build a bench for one side or not  - I like the look, but not sure how practical it is (with no back on the bench). Plentyyyy of time to decide.

This dining room was another room in our house that did not have crown molding, but had the space between the sheetrock that needed to be covered up.  We added that and painted the walls - same color as the living room.

I LOVE our old french doors that go to the master bedroom.  I had a plan all along to re-paint them and decided on black.  I like how bold the doors are now.  A real feature to the room.  They really stand out as you open the front door and enter the house.  Our next step is to add some privacy to the master bedroom.  Our thoughts are to "frost" the glass in the doors or add curtains on the bedroom side of the doors.  I am leaning towards curtains because sometimes I really like that you can view the master as you walk by the doors (only when it is clean of course). If we added curtains I could push them open when I want and close them when things are scary in there.

Our dining room for two is perfect for us right now and there is plenty of room for a (cough cough) high chair (cough cough) .....someday!

Living with the Reno

She is all ours. Now what?  We move in. Fast and furious.  We decided to move in and then start tackling all of the projects that needed to be done.  Let's start with the living room.  Right when we walked in the front door the fireplace (so happy about) and bookshelves were staring at us and they were just begging for a face lift.  I knew before we started the moving process that I wanted to paint the room, fireplace, and bookshelves right away.  We took a million pictures during our walk-through and inspection - so I had a lot to refer to while we were waiting to move in.  I pinned my little heart out on Pinterest so I would already have the paint colors picked out and ready to go.  I had help in town for the week and we wanted to get as much done as possible.

So that is our little gem of a living room. She is actually really cozy. I love how the original wood creaks under my feet as I walk. I love the wall of windows that face the street (great for people watching). I love the wood burning fireplace. I love the potential that is here. Okay, that was a nice moment. Now for the hard work. We immediately started painting the walls, trim, trim, and more trim.

Our living room paint color is Benjamin Moore Moonshine.  We got it color matched in Behr at Home Depot.  Please notice that YES there is about an inch gap between the ceiling and wall.  So we must put crown molding up.  Several of the rooms are like this in the house - we are thinking that the previous owner prepped it for crown molding, but never quite got there.  That's okay - we got this! 

Side note - Hubby built that table out of the fence gate we took down in the backyard and a door that the previous owner left in the garage. A perfect example of how we work : I come up with the idea and he makes it come to life!

We added the crown molding! She feels a little more complete now. Your welcome - living room.  After dressing up the ceiling/walls, we are moving on to the book cases.  I think these are such a great feature in this house - feels very original.  From all my "pinteresting" I decided that I wanted to paint the back wall of the book cases.  Our bedroom (more on that another day) is a darker shade of gray and I used that paint for the back walls.  That way they would not fade into the living room wall color.  LOVE how they turned out and I am now in the process of decorating them.

We waited, waited, waited, waited, and waited.  Oh and we waited some more for our shutters to come in and cover our wall of windows.  Despite having to wait for what felt like an eternity, we are so very happy with them.  They totally change the feel of the living room.  When we walk into the living room from the back of the house - it looks like a different space.  My pictures and words do not capture what an impact these make on our space.  I hear they are pretty good for re-sale too (sa-weeeeet)!  Rosie Posie loves them too - she will rest her head on the bottom slat and look outside for hours.  DO NOT think you can walk on our street and get away with it!

The wood burning fireplace got a little face lift with white paint that we used for trim, just for the time-being.  We plan on tiling it with marble subway tile at some point.

(Pre- paint/window coverings)

Most of our furniture we have had for a while.  I am constantly changing rugs, pillows, lamps, and candles out.  The striped rug - I have already moved to another room and replaced it with a new one in here (too much traffic in this room to have a rug with any inch of white on it..).  Our couches are actually from Hubby's late grandmother.  Some days I LOVE them and other days I look at them and want them out immediately.  With one of them being a sleeper sofa - it is hard to give that up (and to fork out the money for a new one), and just for the plain fact that I am a HUGE fan of anything mustard yellow - I think they will stick around a little bit. Funny that Murphy made it into both of those pictures and they were taken months apart - silly dog!

 

I am slightly obsessed with my "golden" buck on the wall.  The skull and horns are on behalf of my dad (I warned him that I would be altering it when he gave it to me) and I think it adds a touch of masculinity to the room - in a girly way (does that make sense?!).  We will continue to add to the "M" wall as we go. 

We are slowly getting there, and before you know it - I will change something up! It's just what I do.  Come back for more room updates!

{All images by Natalie Monk for Rosie Posie and Home}

The.House.

I want to start - exactly where we started with this house. We bought this house rather quickly - only looking at it one time. We were pressed on time and knew we were okay with a fixer upper. The former owner had no shame and knew this house needed some work. It was listed as " As is - to finish and create your dream home". While many things had been updated (from the 1950s) there was, and is still a lot to do. We saw a diamond in the rough. This house is placed in an amazing and established neighborhood in our town. Lots of trees and space in between each house. We knew when we found a house we could afford in this neighborhood - we HAD to jump on it. And that is just what we did! She is all ours!

In the posts to come I am going to share many of our "before" pictures and "progress" pictures. We are proud of our work and design choices and know that there are many more months (probably years) of work to come. Hubby and I - as well as our parents and siblings have already put many, many hours of work into this house. It is something we have really come to enjoy and look forward to our next project. We have also established our "roles" in this renovation. Let me introduce myself (clearing of the throat)THE PROJECT CREATOR/IDEA MAKER/VISIONARY. And Hubby (another clearing of the throat) THE DOER OF ALL THINGS/HANDY MAN/CARPENTER/PLUMBER/POOL GUY/ETC. Seriously, any idea or picture I have - he can do it. This has come in very handy in our renovation and has saved us A TON of money! And by "save" I mean - I spend it on another project!! So, sit back and enjoy. Take some ideas, give me some, and leave some comments!